


Traveling On

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:07:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28586946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Naomi puts her traveling to good use
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9
Collections: SenThurs.Cynic





	Traveling On

Challenge cynic 

Traveling On

by Bluewolf

Naomi Sandburg left home a week after her sixteenth birthday.

All her life - well, from the time she had first been able to consider her home life objectively - she had been dissatisfied with it. She was fond enough of her parents, but had very little respect for them - her father for expecting everyone in the family to obey his most unreasonable whim, her mother for obeying all those whims. Her older brother had made his escape two years earlier when he went to university, and she knew he had no intention of ever resuming life under the parental roof again.

Unlike her, however, David had an urge to put down roots, and used a bequest from their maternal grandfather to buy himself a house.

She had always been given a generous allowance, and had chosen to save most of it; savings which had been augmented by the fairly large bequest from the grandfather who died the year she was thirteen. And she knew, when she left home, that as long as she lived reasonably frugally, that money would do her for fully seventy-five years. When she traveled, she could hitch-hike. If she stopped somewhere for a week or two, she could stay at a cheap motel - but after a few weeks she invested in a sleeping bag and a fairly large plastic sheet as a kind of makeshift tent and carried some bread and cheese or canned meat for quick meals.

A few weeks into her trek northwards Naomi fell in with a group of hippies. She was instantly drawn to their 'make love not war' attitude and joined them for a while; soon finding that to many of them 'make love not war' really meant 'free love'. She was quickly seduced by a group of six young men, who all 'made love' to her - but it didn't take her long to realize that, to them, 'make love' simply meant 'have sex'. One thing they actively did not want was the responsibility of fatherhood - although it never occurred to any of them to use a condom. In their view it was the girls' responsibility to made sure they would not become pregnant. But Naomi was totally ignorant of how to take precautions, and within a very few weeks she realized she was pregnant.

Her first instinct was to have an abortion, maybe telling the doctor that she had been raped; but on consideration she finally decided against that, with a possibly cynical awareness that a doctor would see her wish for one as what it really was - a kind of contraception - but give the child for adoption as soon as it was born. But she didn't want to continue having sex with any of the six boys (even though she knew that for several months the pregnancy wouldn't show) - not knowing which of them was the father, and knowing that even if she did know he wouldn't accept the responsibility. So she left the group, and headed off on her own again, aware of a decision never to have sex again. She hadn't really enjoyed it much - none of the boys involved had seemed to think of anything but their own satisfaction.

Naomi wandered relatively aimlessly for some four months, but was beginning to realize that she would need to settle somewhere for the second half of her pregnancy.

She hadn't tried to contact her parents since she left home, and was well aware that her father, at least, would be disapproving of the situation; but she had stayed in contact with her brother, and so she contacted him, told him the situation (but claiming rape) and he told her to come and stay with him for as long as she wanted.

She still planned to give the child for adoption, but when her son was born she took one look at him and changed her mind. It wouldn't be easy, with the life she had planned for herself, having a young child... but she had fallen in love with him at first sight, although she was quite surprised at that; she had expected to be reminded of the young hippie men who had seduced her less than a year previously.

With her previous determination to give the child for adoption she had given no thought to a possible name; now she had to think of one, and her mind was drawn irresistibly to the grandfather who had left her, and David, enough money each to give them their independence... and wondered if that had been a deliberate attempt to give them the chance to escape from their father - realizing once again that she was thinking cynically. Well, if it had been, it had certainly helped them both!

Grandfather's name had been Jason Blair. She didn't care for Jason as a name for her son, but Blair? Yes. She liked that; and when she told David, he too liked it.

She decided to stay with David for a month or two after Blair was born; and two days before she planned to leave, David got a phone call from their mother. Their father had died.

Both went back to the parental home for the funeral.

Ruth greeted Naomi happily, but expressed some shock at the child she was carrying. Naomi once again claimed rape - it was easier than admitting that for some weeks she had lived the life of a near-prostitute.

Both Naomi and David were surprised to discover that their father had left them each 25% of his savings; their mother inherited everything else.

"He loved you both," Ruth said. "But he thought the best way to show affection was to control your lives - and mine - so that we never had to take responsibility for our actions. It was his duty, as a responsible husband and father, to make all the decisions. I understood that you had both inherited his sense of responsibility; he never quite understood why you both chose to leave home, giving yourselves the difficulty of making your own decisions." She was silent for a moment, then went on. "I know my father left you both quite a lot of money, too, so - unless you wasted it - you're financially sound. What do you plan to do with your lives?"

"I have a job with an insurance company," David said. "A very junior position at the moment, but my prospects for promotion are good."

Naomi shook her head. "I just want to travel," she said. "I might try writing travel books - I've kept going back to a few places. I've my own experience of attractions for teenagers, of course, but I'm thinking that in two or three years I can use Blair to show me what's available for a young child. What an adult thinks would interest a child and what actually does interest him isn't necessarily the same. I've been with David since before Blair was born, but I'm thinking it's about time to move on, discover places were young children are welcome... "

"If you ever need someone to care for Blair, feel free to call on me," Ruth told her.

"I'll remember that," Naomi said. "Thank you." She knew that if she wanted to give a run-down on a hotel where young children weren't welcome, having somewhere to leave Blair could only be an advantage.

***

They stayed with Ruth until a few days after the funeral, then David went back to work while Naomi stayed with their mother for a few more days; then, leaving Blair there, Naomi moved on.

In truth she hadn't given much thought to her future; just that she wanted to continue traveling, and with the money from her father added to what she already had, traveling outside America was beginning to look appealing. But having told Ruth that she was thinking of writing some travel books did put the feasibility of that as a career into her mind. Yes; she would try. She had spent time in North Texas when she first left home, when she met the hippie group, and decided - despite the negative memories of having been tricked into bed by the young men in the group - that that would be a good place to base her first book.

She spent a night each in several differently-priced hotels - with her father's money added to what she already had, she could afford to do that; quickly realizing that the most expensive, while having every possible amenity, weren't always the best places to stay. Some of the smaller, cheaper hotels, and in one place a bed and breakfast, were as comfortable and had a friendlier staff. Added to places to stay she listed visitor attractions - places to visit, outdoor attractions and for this one an adult-eye view of attractions for children. She went back to Ruth's house (a much friendlier place than it had been) and settled down to put her thoughts in order. She checked for possible publishers and decided to try Berkshire Publishing. The editor she worked with there, Sid Graham, was enthusiastic about her work; Berkshire took her book and expressed an interest in any others she cared to do, and when she said she was thinking of traveling abroad, became even more enthusiastic.

Naomi's first trip abroad gave her the material for another travel guide. On her next trip she took Blair, and leaned on his reactions to the places she visited for the book about it.

The books sold well; she was getting a very good reputation at Berkshire for her insight into what would appeal to the public.

***

Several years later she rewrote some of the earlier books, updating them. By then she could only have an adult-eye view of what would appeal to children - or even teens; by then Blair had gone to Rainier.

In some ways she was happy to note than he, too, had a cynical streak that made it unlikely that he would fall for a scam; though she wasn't happy that he met, and became very friendly with, a Cascade detective, fearing that Jim Ellison was seeing in Blair someone he could use. However, when she met him, she was pleasantly surprised. Seeing their interaction, she was surprised to realize that the 'boss' in their relationship wasn't the apparently dominant ex-soldier cop, but Blair! And when she moved on, she was happier about Blair than she had been since he started university life some twelve years earlier.

And so she headed off to Nepal, wondering about the possibilities of a travel book aimed at climbers that was set in the Himalayas.


End file.
